The Farm by Emily McKay

2 our of 5

This story is about Lily and her autistic sister Mel, their life on a farm and their escape into the wilderness where they have to deal with Ticks, mutated humans who feed on blood straight from the heart. Lily has help from Carter, an old crush from “the before”, and Sebastian a vampire.

I will start with what what was good. It has a unique take on vampires, or at least not one that I hadn’t come across before. Some of the characters were interesting, like Sebastian, If i wrote a vampire book I would like to think i would have written a Sebastian into it.

The universe this is set in is consistent if there isn’t a vast amount of depth to it, there are hints of a rich environment but they aren’t explored. each of the chapters is written form either Lily’s, Mel’s or Carter’s point of view which is a good and bad idea.

This is as good as it is bad. The main character Lily was whiny and emotionally all over the place, I felt there was an unnecessary romantic story line between her and Carter, who she knew in “the before” and hadn’t seen in two years, and magically turns up to “save” her. The ticks (mutated humans) were essentially beasts, had a tiny brain but for some reason could comprehend that churches were sacred and wouldn’t enter until they did. Carter obviously knew what was going on and it didn’t make sense when the chapters were from his point of view because he shows he knows whats going on but cant tell Lily, and he keeps it to himself, seems like a complete waste of time.